Have a favourite route for a bicycle lane? Tell the govt

In the first-ever process of its kind, the Directorate of Urban Land Transport (DULT) has started to crowdsource ideas for building bicycle lanes.

Cyclists can submit the specific routes where they would like a bicycle lane to come up. The process would allow DULT to assess the demand to firm up ideas for the project.

As part of the Union government’s Cycle For Change campaign, DULT has already started working with Bangalore Smart City Limited and the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) to build the pop-up bicycle lane on the service lane of the Outer Ring Road.

DULT expects the priority cycling lanes to create a support system that will eventually develop into a wider cycling network through low-cost intervention.

Officials noted that the pop-up lanes are easy to build and flexible since bollards will demarcate the lane instead of barriers.

“We have tentatively taken up ORR and Old Madras Road (for cycling lanes). Cyclists may have varying demands and prefer different routes apart from main roads. We (therefore) decided to take inputs from them to understand the ground reality and the challenges they face,” DULT director V Manjula said.

Cycling enthusiasts can open the GPS visualiser tool on the DULT website to mark the specific route they travel. This should be cast into a Google form where the user can provide additional information.

Responders to DULT’s invitation need not restrict their preferences to ORR or East Bengaluru as the department wants to understand preferences for cycling lanes across the city to ensure future projects are in sync with public demand. It has given time till August 14 for cyclists to provide their views.

Manjula said the crowdsourcing exercise is also to understand if people prefer sharing bicycles or like to own one. “We expect to learn many things from this exercise,” she said. “This will help us scale up the plans to build extensive networks. We hope a successful model will encourage many to take up cycling.”